Kathlyn Clore

They may appear just another group of anonymous geeks banging away behind laptops in your local café. But online — and in Brussels — the bloggers who write about the European Union are starting to be noticed.

“There is some kind of European blogosphere evolving, at least for some issues,” prominent EU blogger Julien Frisch wrote in one of his first posts of 2010.

“And that if (influential) national blogs take up European questions, they can become more important than one might initially expect.”

The remark came at the end of a post describing information flow within the community of bloggers concerned with the daily politics of the European Union.

One of the best places to delve into this community is Bloggingportal.eu, which promotes the most interesting posts of the day from among more than 500 EU blogs. Frisch’s site is among them.

The team of 25 volunteer editors at Bloggingportal.eu reads hundreds of posts every day. They link to the most interesting of the bunch on their front page.

“We want to reach people that do not necessarily read blogs and we want to show that there is a quality debate going on when it comes to the EU and European debates,” said Andreas Müllerleile, one of the site’s founders. He also blogs on EU issues at Kosmopolitio.

“The long-term goal is to offer a selection of the best blog posts in as many EU languages as possible.”

Bloggingportal.eu turned a year old in January, 2010. The number of blogs it aggregates and monitors has doubled since its launch.

“It somehow shows that we are growing although some blogs stopped posting regularly and it is difficult to filter them out,” Müllerleile said. “However, compared with national political blogopsheres the number is still tiny and I think we still have not reached a critical number of people who write regularly on EU/European affairs.”

Bloggingportal.eu launched on 25 January, 2009, the result of follow-up efforts to a pair of 2007 blog posts about the development of an EU blogosphere. In these, EU blogger Jon Worth attempted to categorise and characterise prominent EU blogs.

“The sheer number of links below means I never quite know where to start for good EU analysis on blogs – maybe time for some better aggregation somewhere?,” he wrote.

So began Bloggingportal.eu. It started as a collaboration between Worth, Müllerleile, and Norwegian media professional Bente Kalsnes. Stefan Happer donated programming expertise and the site initially aggregated about 275 blogs.

“We do not have any funding so we have been working on it in our free time which has been a challenge. We are still beta and we are trying to implement new features. And we are always looking for new people who want to get involved,” Müllerleile said.

The community of people who are interested in closely following the political machinery of the EU may be small, with many a student among the bunch.

But most EU bloggers are focused on moving beyond surface-level EU stories that appear in traditional national newspapers. Many of these stories contain inaccurate information, Müllerleile said. The EU blogosophere is a realm in which to suss and discuss errors made in mainstream press.

To those Europeans surfing happily outside the existing EU blogosphere, though, examining and debating the inner workings of the European Union is a fantastically dry proposition.

Curation – employing editors handpick the most noteworthy posts – is an attempt to make the EU blogosphere more accessible, personal and relevant.

“So many Europeans feel disconnected from European issues and bogged down by the complexity of the institution itself. Having an editor create a path through the information can be a definite bonus for those not already familiar with the topic,” said Ruth Spencer, an editor at Th!nk About It, a European blogging platform supported by the EJC.

This idea is captured in the logo of Bloggingportal; here the stars of the European Union flag dance within what could appear to be a drop of water.

The drop represents the “pure essence” squeezed out of the EU blogosphere, Müllerleile said.

Will it catch on?

This may depend on the ability of writers, translators (machine or human) and readers to break through language barriers.

At the moment, national communities in Europe do not interact much with one another online, a report by French research agency Linkfluence concluded in autumn, 2009. Most interactions and conversations happen within the respective national communities, the report said.

Conversations about how to best overcome this challenge are happening around the EU blogosphere. Models like Café Babel, which pays translators, and Global Voices, which uses volunteer translators, are often cited.

“Bloggingportal isn’t a content creator but an aggregator,” said Spencer, the Th!nk About It editor. “The best they can do is take as much as possible from all the EU languages.”

Müllerleile said Bloggingportal.eu initially tried translating posts using automatic machine translation, but were unsatisfied with the results.

“We are thinking of other solutions but nothing has emerged just yet,” he said.

It’s indeed a good challenge for Bloggingportal’s future years.

Is the threat of climate change what legacy media brands needed to finally implement innovative new media strategies?

Starting with a syndicated editorial that ran in 56 newspapers, the international press have demonstrated far more collaborative spirit in coverage of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen than the politicians who have been sent to Denmark to take action.

The editorial, penned at The Guardian, notes:

“If we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree on what must be done then surely our leaders can too.”

In addition to 16 newspapers from Asia, 20 European countries ran the editorial. The 1,113 words - in English - of the editorial were translated into 20 languages.

Indeed, COP15 has been a boon for syndication, distributed coverage, interactivity and aggregation.

On Facebook, a group called The Climate Pool has become a second home for the content of 11 different news publishers, including: Agence France-Press, ANP (the Netherlands), APCom (Italy), RIA (Russia), dpa (Germany), Lusa (Portugal) and The Associated Press (United States).

The group accumulated more than 5,000 fans as of the start of COP15. Participating agencies have posted articles relating to Copenhagen coverage, opening these up for comments. The group also includes discussion forums, on which - impressively - journalists from The Climate Pool have engaged with other Facebook users.

According to its own press release, The Climate Pool was initiated by a global media network called MINDS International. Based in Germany, MINDS began its life as European Commission-funded project in 2004; it now operates with funding from its members.

The group represents a departure from the isolated positions of news agencies like the AP, which distribute content to paying members but act as vertical silos online, unwilling to share content. An executive from the AP told Journalism.co.uk that participating in The Climate Pool is an experimental project “to help the agency better understand what tools are best used for covering certain events and answer questions about social media newsgathering and distribution.”

For netizens who want to comment on COP15 proceedings as they happen, enter the OneClimate Channel.

Thanks to the free video-sharing platform Justin.TV, the is running an interactive livestream of the meetings in Denmark. Viewers are able to watch live meetings, in English, while discussing with other viewers in real time alongside the video.

Live broadcasts are available on the COP15 site itself, but the UN site does not offer viewers a chance to comment.

In between official briefings, interviewers from the OneClimate initiative host discussions on various climate change themes with other activists. These too are open for real-time reader comments.

The Channel, which is live during business hours, can be embedded across the Internet.

“OneClimate.net has always been in the business of producing free digital spaces and tools for amplifying the voices of thousands of climate action groups around the world,” a press release from the initiative said. “Its new interactive TV channel is based on the same philosophy.”

OneClimate is part a UK nonprofit called OneWorld Network, which began in 1995 and is now a distributed network of activist sites.

Finally, thematic blogging platforms like the EJC’s ThinkAboutIt campaign and Global Voices Online have been active for months.

Both offer netizens a portal to blogs of citizens from all over the world; they’re reliable sources for authentic voices speaking from countries like Brazil, India, the US and the EU27.

The question is: Will the politicians at Copenhagen listen?

New media strategies like syndication, distribution, aggregation, social networking, curated lists, real-time discussion and search do provide entry points for more voices. But is it all one big echo chamber?

Communications staff in charge of compiling media briefings for their respective politicians each day of the COP15 have no excuse not to have their hands full of material.

Does DailyPerfect know me better than my own grandma?

Nani, after all, the No. 1 regular reader of KathlynClore.com. She’s known me since I was born and has the photos and embarrassing stories to prove it. She took me on a shopping day for my 13th birthday, attended my college graduation and once bought me neon plaid pants (it was a phase). We share a deep-seeded love of shoes, Nordstroms, handsome men and watching 24-hour news channels. She even came to visit me in the Netherlands earlier this year - making her first trip to Europe at 70 plus (I’m so proud!)

But could she tailor-make a newspaper magazine for me? Mine Magazine already does; I couldn’t help but sign up for a free trial subscription. But it often includes stories I’ve already read online. Plus, it tries to sell me Lexus. Nani only bothers me with news about my cousin Alexis. Advantage: Nani.

Now DailyMotion says it can best Mine Magazine. It says that all I have to do is tell it my name and it makes an up-to-the-moment newspaper for me. It also promises to suggest some books I should read.

Now, don’t go writing Nani off too quickly. In case you don’t know… Nani did work in journalism for a few years before “having her babies.” And it was a daily-Sunday! And she had to layout her own pages by hand! With a society page! She knows her stuff.

She’s even down with new media. She has her own Facebook page and everything!! She Googles. She creates personalized content herself. She tells me things to do and read all the time!! She even has made a series of lectures specifically for me and my siblings and cousins! Truly: Lecture No. 1 is (as we all know) “Don’t shoot yourself in the foot”. Lecture No. 5 is: Donald Pliner makes the best heels.

But much as I love my Nani, though, I have to say… I think she’s a bit busy keeping libraries across the Chicago area in business (she sells property and casualty insurance. She helps Girl Scouts, too! Some of her family members think she only continues to work so she can “happen to pass by a sale on her way from work.” But I am sure she works because she loves libraries and Girl Scouts.) to keep me updated the way DailyPerfect can.

It works pretty simply: If your name is recognizable enough, it can troll the Internet to see other things you like. Then it suggests news content based on this record.

I’m not unimpressed with what it gives me. And I like how easy it is to vote for or against various themes.

But I agree with Martin over at the Neiman Journalism Labs - it’s a little creepy! I don’t know if I want the Internet to know me as well as my grandma.

Here’s the books it says I should read:

Margot Wallström this week stopped by the press room at the “Berlaymonster” to highlight the launch of PressEuropa.

In her opening remarks (video below), she says the site is one of many Commission attempts (there was a government tender out on this project, which means it is funded by EU taxpayers) to foster the European public information sphere.

I think the idea behind this website is a sound one. I enjoyed my first looks at the site itself, which aggregates the most interesting news sites from the top newspapers in the 27 member states. It is indeed a fun, magazine-like read. The aggregation is done by hand, as I understand it, as is the translation. Articles are translated into 10 EU languages.

The site begs two questions:

1. Are the newspapers from which stories are culled offered compensation for the repurposing of their content?

2. The stories are all selected by an independent team of journalists, but must reflect - according to the site’s editorial charter - topics of interest to the “European Project”.

I wonder if promoting wider circulation of stories involving Europe isn’t “EU propaganda”; ie, pushing the concept of “Europe” down the throats of folks residing in the member states. And if so… Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?

Further, is it effective propaganda (if it is)? Or is this the creation of a multilingual echo chamber?